


The City Is A Drag

by rilla



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Crossdressing, Feminization, M/M, Prostitution, Zayn Malik is Veronica
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-03-13 04:21:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3367607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rilla/pseuds/rilla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Zayn becomes a rentboy because it’s easy. He becomes an escort because being a rentboy is excruciating and painful and embarrassing, and because he still hasn’t found anything he’s better at than getting fucked for money. He becomes a crossdressing escort because apparently he’s ‘got the bone structure for it’. He definitely hasn’t got the arse or the hips but that’s beside the point. The point is that he’s good at it. The point is that he doesn’t hate it. The point is that there’s a tiny part of him that likes it, and that doesn’t want to give up his nice flat or his driver or his clothes or his expensive watch or the diamond studs in his ears. The point is that after a couple of years, being an escort is just part of who he is. It’s his life. And – this is the part that gets people, the part that no one ever believes – he doesn’t want to quit.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. sure you'll make a lot of money

**Author's Note:**

> This first part is more of a character study, pre-Zarry. Title from Hawksley Workman, because I couldn't resist the pun. If there are other warnings that should be in the tags of this, please let me know. Thank you so much to Helen for reading this for me.

Zayn becomes a rentboy because it’s easy. He becomes an escort because being a rentboy is excruciating and painful and embarrassing, and because he still hasn’t found anything he’s better at than getting fucked for money. He becomes a crossdressing escort because apparently he’s ‘got the bone structure for it’. He definitely hasn’t got the arse or the hips but that’s beside the point. The point is that he’s good at it. The point is that he doesn’t hate it. The point is that there’s a tiny part of him that likes it, and that doesn’t want to give up his nice flat or his driver or his clothes or his expensive watch or the diamond studs in his ears. The point is that after a couple of years, being an escort is just part of who he is. It’s his life. And – this is the part that gets people, the part that no one ever believes – he doesn’t want to quit.

*

Tonight Zayn’s wearing heels. He hates heels. Sometimes he thinks that wearing heels is the bane of his fucking life, except then he remembers girdles, and the fact that his kitchen window won’t shut properly even though he’s been onto his landlord more times than he can count, and whenever people put sweetcorn unexpectedly in tuna sandwiches, and the person who lets their dog shit just outside his doorway, and accidentally getting jizz in his eye. All of those things are probably worse than wearing heels, but at the end of the night it definitely doesn’t feel like it, when his toes are cramped and the balls of his feet are throbbing and his stocking seam is rubbing unpleasantly against his heel.

He’s only halfway through the evening now, but they’re hurting anyway. He’s out with Eric, one of his regular clients, who isn’t so bad. He’s about fifty, and he still has most of his hair, which Zayn likes. Eric likes the girlfriend experience. He likes it when Veronica shows up looking like she’s fresh from the office, except ten times prettier and more fragrant. He likes Veronica’s most delicate blouse, which is thin silk, pale purple, tight at the wrists, one button undone at the collar, enough so that he can see the hollow of Zayn’s throat, not so low that any of his tattoos are visible. He likes it when Veronica crosses her feet neatly at the ankle, when she touches his hand, half playful and half shy. He likes it most when Zayn pushes him down onto the hotel bed later and sits astride him, edging Veronica’s skirt higher and higher so it’s around his waist, rubbing his dick until he’s hard and the head of his erection’s poking out of the waistband of his lacy knickers. He likes it when Zayn reaches into his shirt and pulls out Veronica’s fake tits, one at a time, the ooze and slap as Zayn peels them off his chest and out of his bra and drops them onto the bed. He likes to compliment Zayn’s dirty, wet little cunt as he fucks into him after that. That’s fine. It’s a job.

Zayn’s drinking red wine, because red wine is invariably safe. He doesn’t get too drunk or stay too sober, although it always makes him want to smoke. He’s itching for a cigarette. The clock’s edging closer and closer to nine, which means that Eric will be taking Veronica back to a hotel room soon, because he has to be back home with his wife by eleven. Zayn – Veronica – has been with Eric a few times now. He has an account with the agency, which is helpful, because it means that there aren’t any awkward conversations about money; instead it just gets transferred directly into Zayn’s bank account after he sends out invoices to the company for ‘services rendered’. He even pays his taxes, which is more than can be said for a lot of escorts he knows.

God. He really, really wants a fag. It’s getting agonising. “I’m just going to powder my nose,” Zayn – Veronica –says, and throws Eric a small, flirtatious smile.

“You do what you have to, darling,” he says, with a wink that makes Zayn feel itchy.

He has no idea what else Eric might think he’s doing. Coke, probably, which he tries to stay away from most of the time. Anyway, as if he’d take coke on a date without making his client pay for it. _Come on, Eric. This isn’t amateur hour. There’s a reason you’re here with a pro_. He slips off his bar stool and twists his hips delicately to straighten Veronica’s skirt before making his way through to the bathrooms. They’re in east London because Eric works in the financial district on this side of town, further in around Liverpool Street, which means that the crowd’s a little scummy and a little liberal. Zayn feels safe going into the ladies’ loos here. That isn’t always the case.

It’s actually not a particularly nice bar. They don’t get stared at, and there’s no one here who stands the faintest chance of knowing Eric or his wife, which is presumably why they’re here, but it’s still not nice. It’s dark in a way that insinuates it’s dirty and sticky, rather than providing much atmosphere. The heels of Zayn’s shoes keep getting stuck on the floor. Veronica would probably have a problem with that, but he doesn’t, not particularly. He goes into a cubicle and pisses and washes his hands and doesn’t make eye contact with the slightly surprised looking girl who comes in as he’s hovering next to the hand dryer. He knows he’s almost 5’11 with these shoes. He knows his jawline’s too sharp for a girl, he knows that his hips lack padding, that his arse is disappointingly flat. He has ways to get around those things, but Eric’s not particularly into them. He likes the lace and the silk underneath the skirt, so that’s what Veronica gives him. And if that means Zayn gets a couple more looks than usual, he’ll just have to deal with it.

He sneaks out of the back exit and lights a cigarette. The May air is cool but not cold; he wants to lean against the brick wall, but Veronica’s stupid impractical shirt will snag, and it was way too expensive for him to ruin it already. He’s also too close to the bins for comfort; he can smell something unpleasantly sweet and rotting. It’s less than ideal. But he needs a smoke and he doesn’t want to walk straight past Eric to the front of the bar. He doesn’t want to stand openly on the side of the street in a skirt and heels with long curls and a long, tasteful silver chain nestled over his fake tits. Zayn hates tasteful things. He likes bling, if he’s going to wear jewellery. Thick bracelets and expensive watches and rings that could win him a fight. But Veronica wouldn’t wear skulls and suns on her fingers; when he’s Veronica he’s bare, except for the swallow tattoo on his right hand. That’s not very Veronica, but she’ll just have to deal with it.

He smokes fast, the cigarette smouldering red in the half-light. He’s at the end of an alleyway, which opens up onto a back street beyond. There’s a streetlamp down there, and, as Zayn watches, a figure appears beneath it. Tall, young. Wild hair, wide set eyes, a full mouth. Long legs, skinny jeans, arms dark with ink. Zayn watches for a moment, the way that the boy stops under the light. It turns his skin gold and his eyes into dark pools under his brows. He’s pretty, Zayn realises suddenly, and he’s got the sort of arse and thighs that would look a lot better under Veronica’s skirts than Zayn’s do. Zayn finishes his cigarette, lingers for a moment. The boy stands there, jeans painted on, hip cocked, the sleeves of his white t-shirt rolled up like he thinks he’s James Dean. 

Zayn knows this area. He knows why the boy’s standing that way, deliberately provocative; he knows how you make yourself look supple and sexual, how you stand out from the rest, because he knows there’ll be other boys on that street. He was there, a couple of years ago, before he got his current gig, before Veronica, before he worked himself into a good reputation. He watches for a moment longer. A car stops and the window rolls down. The boy leans into it, his bum in the air. Zayn hears the soft crunch of laughter come drifting through the night, and then the boy stands back, cracks the door open. He tosses his messy hair back off his forehead, looks back, and somehow his eyes make contact with Zayn’s. It’s hard to see from a distance but Zayn thinks that for a moment he lingers, thinks that his eyes widen, thinks that his jaw drops, just a little. Zayn flips Veronica’s hair over his shoulder, lets his tongue dart out onto his bottom lip. It’s just – it’s something he does, something Veronica does, something he’s used to. Making boys look, even if this boy is getting into a car with another man.

The boy gets in and the car door shuts behind him. The engine groans just before the car roars off. Zayn remembers that well, that adrenaline rush of being with a strange man, wondering what he’ll ask you to do. He doesn’t remember things being all that filthy then. Degrading, maybe, but not filthy. Less specific. More ‘here’s a hundred quid for a doggy style fuck’ and less ‘don’t wear the makeup, wear the heels but not the makeup, no wig either, just wear the underwear and the heels and tie me up and whip me while I call you ‘Daddy’, for reasons I’ll get awkwardly teary about afterwards’. There’s more listening involved too these days, which is fine. Zayn’s always preferred listening to talking, although he doesn’t really know what advice he should give. He doesn’t know if men go to escorts for their problems to be solved, or if they’d rather just be looked after for as long as they’ve paid for. As far as he can tell it depends on the individual, although he did once get backhanded across the face for suggesting to a client that maybe if he stopped doing insider trading he might worry about it a bit less.

An hour later he rides Eric in an expensive hotel room with his skirt hitched up around his waist and his stockings still on and a bra stretched across his chest, the clasp straining every time he moves his shoulders. Veronica’s pale silk shirt is in a shimmering heap at the foot of the bed and his heels are tangled in a heap somewhere across the room. He scratches his nails down Eric’s chest and tells him how big and beautiful his dick is and that he doesn’t know if he can take any more and then he begs him for more anyway, and then Eric tells him he’s the prettiest thing he’s ever seen and that he’s got sexy tits and a delicious little cunt. There’s a part of Zayn that wants very badly to laugh. God, every time. Eric’s predictable, although Zayn doesn’t mind that. He thinks about the boy again, his eyes under the streetlight and the curve of the small of his back and the wide, sweet line of his mouth. How young he looked. He remembers being in that position, taken places by strange men, he remembers the ones with bad breath and dirty cocks and stinking balls, the ones who refused to use condoms and looked like they might get nasty if he insisted. He remembers letting them fuck him anyway. Dirty flats and bumping his head on car roofs as he scrambled over to give blowies in the back seat and the rough scratch of brick against his hands as he bent over against walls in too-cold air, willing himself to loosen up more. He’s come a long way since then. 

Afterwards, once he’s sucked Zayn’s dick and swallowed like his spunk was manna from heaven, Eric wants to tell him about his son, who doesn’t speak to him much at home and who occasionally smokes skunk. Apparently it’s very stressful. Zayn widens his eyes and makes all the right noises, sympathetic and sweet. He can feel sweat cooling inside his wig cap, which isn’t great. At the end, Eric turns to him with troubled eyes and says, “What do you think I should do?”

Zayn thinks, _You should go home earlier. Stop fucking escorts. Cancel your account. Ask him what the problem is. It doesn’t take a genius, you absolute dipshit._ He strokes a fingertip up Eric’s arm and frowns, as prettily as he knows how. “I think you’ve got wonderful instincts,” he says, and smiles. “I think you’ll work it out.”

Eric’s face clears a little. “You think that?” he asks.

Zayn nods. “Look how much you’ve helped me,” he says. “Taking me to places like this. Showing me what a real man’s like.”

It’s funny, watching Eric visibly puff up with pride. “Yes,” he agrees. “Yes, well, that’s true.” He looks at Zayn hard; it’s funny to imagine what he might be seeing. A thick layer of makeup disguising whatever evening shadow Zayn’s chin might have produced, glossy hair falling over his face, the remnants of deep red on his lips. All Zayn knows is that Eric isn’t looking at him. “Beautiful girl,” Eric says, and leans in to kiss him, to kiss Veronica, just once. Then he says, “I must be off,” and rolls off the bed, businesslike, before going into the bathroom and turning the shower on. Until he comes out, Zayn creeps underneath the covers. The room’s rented for the night, but he thinks he wants to go home anyway. He wants to rip the wig off as soon as possible because it’s itching his hairline, his ears, the back of his neck, but he doesn’t want to walk through the hotel lobby with a skirt and no wig on. Even as it is he’s going to have to touch up his makeup before he leaves. He tries to get stuff that he won’t sweat off mid-fuck, but it isn’t always easy.

After his shower, Eric leaves. He kisses Zayn goodbye first, hand creeping up to curl around one of the empty cups of his bra. Zayn pads around the room, runs a wet washcloth over his cock and between his legs and over his armpits and the back of his neck. He straightens up Veronica’s hair, slides his fake tits back into place, blots the sheen off his face, slips his feet back into his stupid, uncomfortable shoes. There should be a car waiting outside for him from the agency, which is lucky. Otherwise it’d be a long way home.

*

Becoming Veronica takes longer than being Zayn, so it costs extra. First he takes a long shower, shaves his legs, depending on what he’ll be wearing and where he’ll be going and who he’ll be with. Pits are a no-no unless it’s specifically requested, which it usually isn’t, and anyway, Veronica usually wears long sleeves right down to her wrists, tight dresses and buttoned cuffs. He got that idea off Dolly Parton, seeing faint shadows of her secret candy-coloured tattoos through the sleeves of her gauzy blouses. His ink isn’t remotely candy-coloured, and Veronica would probably think it was uncouth – that’s a Veronica word, not a Zayn word – so when he turns into her, he covers up. Men like to unbutton Veronica, anyway.

He gets himself clean, soaps his body and his arse slowly and carefully. He has two different types of shower gel. Zayn uses anything with citrus in it, lemons and limes, but Veronica likes vanilla and honey, thick lingering scents. After his shower he wipes a clear space in his steamed up mirror and inspects his eyebrows so he can pluck any errant hairs. He leaves them as natural as he can – thanks, Cara Delevingne, for setting a precedent – but Veronica’s not the sort of woman who’d look anything other than immaculately groomed. He shaves, as close as possible, until he looks like a thinner version of his sixteen year old self, and he dries his hair before slicking it back and carefully pulling his wig cap on. He’s never been sure, really, about the exact order he’s supposed to do this in, learned it off YouTube and a couple of his favourite exes, but he knows what works, how to trim off his angles. Veronica’s the sort of person who’d learn to contour off Kim Kardashian anyway, so Zayn doesn’t feel too bad about it. He rubs primer into his skin and then foundation, erases his blotches and his pores and the faint blue of stubble that always lingers, and turns himself the colour of even, pale honey. He brushes blusher over the apples of his cheeks and shades the sharp edges of his jaw and highlights himself where he knows the light will hit. He can do a decent cat eye with liquid eyeliner now, so Veronica’s eyes stand out behind her glasses. His sister helped him with that one. 

What he’s wearing depends on what he’s doing and who he’s doing. He’s got a couple of clients who like to take him out, wine and dine him, sit next to him at ceremonies and parties. They like having him next to them, a too-angular girl with a narrow waist and killer lashes. He knows he makes people look twice, although he doesn’t think too hard about why. And there are the others, the ones who just want to get him home and out of Veronica’s underwear. Sometimes, if he sits right, he likes the way her knickers feel. He wears a bra too, although he doesn’t always stuff it. Again, it depends on the client. Some of them like him in something lacy and tight, straining across his ribs, but some like him a little more dishevelled, ill-fitting knickers and an empty bra with gaping cups. He knows how to shift his shoulder so a strap slides off it on cue. He knows when to arch his back and stick his arse out, kittenish and sweet; he knows when to smear his lipstick with the back of his hand, casual as anything, cupping his dick, standing like a man. Veronica wears silk shirts, pencil skirts, stockings, suspender belts, expensive fitted dresses with nipped in waists and flared skirts. Veronica is all about understatement. Dark purple, dusky grey, midnight blue. She’s a girl that once upon a time he would never have bothered to try to work out.

He doesn’t feel like Veronica unless he’s wearing her hair. He has three wigs, and each one was expensive, although he didn’t have to pay for them. Investments worth making, considering the amount of times he’s worn them. One long and tousled, one short and blunt and one mid-length and choppy. He likes having her hair fall over his face, partly so he doesn’t have to make too much of an effort to hide his sideburns, but mostly because that’s another thing on the already extensive list of things that take him further and further away from Zayn and more into Veronica. It’s like sinking into a play, like when he was fourteen and he joined a youth theatre group and pitched face first into characters he’d never encountered before. Veronica’s like that. He taught her to himself, once upon a time. He can take her off and put her on almost as easily as her favourite silk dress, the one that slips so easily off his shoulders when someone slowly unzips it. Men like Veronica. Zayn likes men, and the money they bring to him. They go together well, Zayn and Veronica.


	2. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I don't have time to make this into a proper fic but I would like to write parts of it and put them up here as isolated ficlets/drabbles. This is the first time Zayn lets Harry into his flat.

“What do you look like without the makeup?” Harry asks, after a moment, leaning against Zayn’s kitchen worktop.

“A monster,” Zayn says immediately, pressing his tongue against his teeth as he smiles at Harry. “Proper hideous. You’ll scream.”

Harry laughs, low and inviting in a way that makes Zayn’s stomach do something odd. “I highly doubt that,” he says, as silky and sweet as one of Veronica’s best dresses.

Zayn stares hard at him, brows furrowing together. “No,” he says. “No, don’t do that. Don’t use that voice. That’s a client voice. Don’t be a dick. I recognise that. I’ve got one of those voices, for fuck's sake.” He starts taking things out of his dishwasher, for want of a better thing to do. His hands are shaking; he’s afraid he might drop a glass. He’s afraid of so many fucking things. That Harry will walk out. That he’ll snag his stockings and have to pay another sixteen pounds for some new ones. That Harry will recognise him, somehow, without the makeup on. Without the skirt. That they'll pass each other in Tesco's, and his life will become somehow unbearable. 

“Really?” Harry’s staring at him, unapologetic. “Do it.”

“Do what?” Zayn says.

“Your client voice. Your... Veronica voice?” Harry says, more tentative now. He’s spread his legs just a little, Zayn can’t help but notice. He isn’t sure if Harry’s hiding something or showing it off.

“Well.” Zayn puts a mug onto his mug tree and looks at his kitchen worktop, trying to collect himself. “It’s not that different.”

“But it’s a bit different,” Harry says. He sounds young and eager. Sometimes Zayn doesn’t know if he was ever that young. He sometimes feels like he was born old – not wise, but cynical, maybe. He doesn’t have any baby pictures to look back on but he feels like if he did, he’d see a sort of wry twist to the smile on his baby face. Different from his sisters even then. Veronica lurking behind everything he did. It’s not like she’s another personality – just a coat he slips on sometimes, that he’s owned for a long time. Threadbare around the edges but he doesn’t know if he’ll ever let go of her entirely.

“A bit,” he concedes. He closes the dishwasher before turning around to face Harry properly. Slipping into Veronica is maybe too easy now. He leans against the worktop, one foot in front of the other, turned slightly so he’s less angular, so his lean waist in his dress is more obvious, the way it flares out at the hips. “I don’t know what you want me to say,” he says. It’s easy, really. Veronica is the sort of person who’d go to the opera without getting bored. She probably has an opinion on the European Union, and knows that rose gold makes her look sallow but silver makes her skin gleam bright. She has been bought jewels, by multiple people. She sat through lectures in university about Chaucer and Dostoevsky, and had actual opinions to share in seminars. She’s probably been to see multiple Chekhov plays and understands Shakespeare. She’s cultured and she picks her words thoughtfully, she ends all her sentences, she doesn’t get huffy and storm off halfway through a conversation. She always knows what to say. She always knows when to listen too. Zayn leans against the counter and smiles at Harry, soft and gentle, and lets a lock of Veronica’s hair curl around his finger. “What should I say?” he says, in Veronica’s lilt, and takes a step towards Harry. “Honestly. You tell me. I’m all yours.”

Harry’s cheeks are burning pink and his mouth’s slightly ajar. “Oh my fuck,” he says, and Zayn laughs. He can’t help it. It’s his normal laugh too, ungainly and ridiculous, face creasing up in a million different ways, but he can’t stop himself. It’s the look on Harry’s face, his utter mesmerisation, his focus, his confusion as well. “You could win an Oscar!” Harry says, sounding stunned, and Zayn shakes his head, still laughing. “You’re a twat,” he says, and Harry’s face crinkles up into a more genuine smile now, shaking his head as he comes towards Zayn. 

“You’re so fucking lovely,” he says. “I love it when you do that.”

“Do what?” Zayn says.

Harry just shakes his head and looks down into Zayn’s face, half blank, half thoughtful. Carefully, he drags the side of his hand across Zayn’s mouth, before frowning, eyes still on Zayn’s lips.

“Did you just smear my lipstick?” Zayn asks. He feels a bit breathless, somehow.

“I thought it might all come off,” Harry says, with earnest consternation.

“It doesn’t work that way,” Zayn tells him, so warm he thinks he might burst. “It’s not magic.”

“Then I was going to kiss you,” Harry says. “It was going to be very symbolic.”

Zayn’s heart might be about to beat its way out of Veronica’s dress. “I don’t want you to kiss me,” he says. “We’re just friends, remember?”

“Of course.” Harry doesn’t look convinced, but he’s doing his smile again, the one from before, blank and professional. _I’ll do anything_ , Zayn remembers him saying, when he saw Harry weeks ago. _Anything_. It’s the sort of smile that Zayn thinks he could learn to hate. 

Gently, Zayn pushes him away. “Isn’t it time for you to go home?” he says, as soft as he can manage. It’s Veronica, almost, and Harry knows it, Zayn can tell he does from the twist to his mouth. He shrugs, peels away, makes for Zayn’s front door. It’s for the best, Zayn tells himself sternly as the door swings shut behind him. The flat is deafeningly empty, but it’s for the best. He listens to the quiet for a moment, and wonders if maybe he should get some kind of pet. A cat, maybe. A dog would be too much work, too much time and hassle and muck, although he loves them, their sweetness, their devotion. It’s too much; he doesn’t want that. Can’t have it. Not now, anyway. Not yet.

He kicks off Veronica’s heels and goes into his bathroom. Underneath the makeup he looks awful: drawn and pale. Tired, too. First the wig, and it hurts as he takes it off, pulls the pins out of his own hair and drops them carefully into their little pot. He puts the wig over the mannequin and determines to comb it out tomorrow. He shakes makeup remover onto a cotton pad and wipes it over his face, his cheekbones, his nose and chin, golden foundation coming away. The lipstick that Harry smeared like a bloodstain over his face. His jawline is faintly blue from stubble almost coming through, which somehow makes him even more tired as he surveys it. The eye makeup hurts, almost, as he scrubs his eyes to get all of the mascara off, and they water afterwards. They water more as he picks out the last hairpins and pulls off his wig cap, shaking his hair forward to let it fall over his forehead, sweaty and dark and blessedly short and cool. He doesn’t feel like showering, stripping down, being cold and naked, shivering in a towel, but he does it anyway. The bruises on his hips are something that he doesn’t especially want to think about for now, so he doesn’t. He wraps himself in pyjamas instead – comically thick, bought from Marks and Spencers, probably intended for sixty-year-olds – and falls into bed. 

He expects to dream like usual, to wake up tangled in sheets and breathless and sweating, but somehow he sleeps through until morning. He pads through into the kitchen, bare feet on his cold tiled floor, walks past the discarded stockings and heels – funny how the morning after they always seem to belong to someone else’s life – and switches the kettle on. It isn’t until a little later, when he’s about to go downstairs to collect his post, that he sees the note that’s been slid under his front door. Unfamiliar loopy handwriting on the back of a white pizza menu: _Hey beautiful (interesting funny) V, CALL ME THIS TIME. H. xx_. Under that there’s a phone number. 

Zayn doesn’t dial it, not yet. He puts it on the kitchen worktop instead, so he can think about phoning it, or texting it, more likely. On the whole, he thinks that’s progress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My tumblr is [flomps](http://flomps.tumblr.com) and my twitter is [foracorkscrew](https://twitter.com/foracorkscrew) \- say hi! Thanks for reading.

**Author's Note:**

> More of this to come. @foracorkscrew on twitter; [flomps](http://flomps.tumblr.com/) on tumblr - feel free to say hi.


End file.
